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Otway Town F.C.
| dissolved = | ground = Trinity Park | capacity = 9,500 | owner = Stanford Collins | chairman = | manager = Greg Holloway | coach = | currentleague = League A | currentposition = | lastseason = | lastleagueb = League B | lastposition = 2nd (promoted) | current = | website = | firstgame = | largestwin = | worstdefeat = | topscorer = | fansgroup = | honours = | American = }} Otway Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Otway, St. Gregory. The team plays in League A, the top professional tier of the St. Gregory Football Association. The club joined the SGFA in 1992 with the backing of American shipping magnate Stanford Collins, entering play in League C. They have spent much of their history as a yo-yo club, drifting between the top two divisions of Gregorian football, and have rivalries with several nearby clubs including Union Town, Petit-Rouge and Fort-de-Vert. The team came closest to major success when they reached the 2007 SGFA Cup Final, but were defeated by Zane Hills. The team plays its home games at the 9,500-seat Trinity Park in Otway. History In 1990, Stanford Collins, a businessman from Peoria, Illinois, purchased a stake in Western Hydro, the company then responsible for the operations of the Otway Dam. He would spend months at a time in the town of Otway, and before long had begun to investigate other business ventures in the region. The popularity of football across St. Gregory piqued Collins' interest in starting a professional club of his own, and by the fall of 1991 he had launched a publicity campaign to generate support for a club that he intended to enter in the 1992-93 League C season, due to begin a year later. Collins intended to name his team the Otway Dambuilders but under the advisement of his staff, he dubbed the team a more traditional-sounding name: Otway Town Football Club. The SGFA approved the club's application for acceptance as a member of the professional leagues and declared on January 22, 1992, that Otway Town would compete in League C beginning that fall. Collins and his staff immediately set about recruiting players and coaches. David Stith was named the club's first manager and Nigel Melrose, a Lancashire-born midfielder who had had stints with FC Chapman and Clifftown Crusaders, was named the first captain. Despite the hoopla, the 1992-93 season held little expectations for the upstart club – one of four expansion teams in League C that season – however they claimed a notable victory over eventual league champions Bay View in just their second match. Town went on to finish a respectable 6th out of 8 teams in League C, second best of the expansion clubs behind Eventide, who finished 5th. They also defeated Fort-de-Vert at home in the first round of the 1992-93 SGFA Cup before going down to League B side Swifton Athletic in the second round. Otway Town finished 5th in the 1996-97 League C season, but were promoted to League B for the first time as a result of the top six teams being promoted to facilitate a nationwide expansion of the SGFA system; the second tier grew from 10 to 12 teams for 1997-98. Town finished 6th that following season and were never again relegated back to the third division. They were promoted to League A for the first time in 2006 as a result of finishing runners-up in League B behind Forest United in 2005-06. They recorded their best-ever finish in 2006-07 of 8th place in League A, going to the SGFA Cup Final in 2007 (where they were defeated 1-0 by Zane Hills). Unfortunately, the club could not build on the momentum of that season and would last only another two seasons in the top flight before being relegated after a 14th-place finish in 2008-09. After an absence of two years, they again returned to League A with their first-ever silverware: the 2010-11 League B championship. Town finished 2017-18 in 3rd place and thus qualified for the promotion playoffs, where they defeated Bonneville Juniors 4-3 on aggregate to advance to the final. They were defeated in the final by Helena Point Rangers, 1-0, and they will remain in League B for the 2018-19 season. In 2018-19, the Jaguars finished second in League B, securing promotion on the penultimate matchday of the season with a 3-1 away win over Sparta Antillen. They will return to the top flight after a four-year absence. In November 2019, the club sacked Meacham after winning just one of their first nine games of 2019-20 and hired Greg Holloway as his replacement, marking a first foray into management for the former St. Gregory international. Colors, crest and nickname The club's official colors are blue and gold. At their inception in 1992, they played in blue shirts with red and gold trim, the same colors of founder Stanford Collins' favorite hockey team, the St. Louis Blues. When the Blues dropped red as a trim color in the summer of 1998, so too did Otway Town. The team is nicknamed the Jaguars. When establishing the club, Collins originally wanted to call them the Dambuilders, but was convinced by his mostly British staff to pick a less American sounding name. One legend which has neither been confirmed nor denied by Collins is he picked the nickname Jaguars after seeing a Jaguar car driving past his house in Greenley and deciding it was the most English nickname he could come up with. The club is often simply referred to as Town by fans and commentators, despite potential confusion with longtime nearby rivals Union Town. Kits Otway Town's uniforms are currently supplied by adidas. The club is currently without a shirt sponsor; previously, Digicel was the team's shirt sponsor from 2014 to 2017 and also held naming rights to the team's home ground, known as Digicel Trinity Park during this time. Players Current squad : As of August 27, 2019 Note: Players without a flag are from St. Gregory. Players with an asterisk (*) are from outside the United States or its territories, or have represented a non-U.S. territory at international level, but hold either citizenship or permanent residency in the U.S. and thus do not count towards the league cap on foreign players. Out on loan Former players :Further information: Category:Otway Town F.C. players Managerial history :Further information: Category:Otway Town F.C. managers Honors * League B :*'Champions (1)': 2010-11 :*''Runners-up (3): 2005-06, 2013-14, 2018-19 :*Playoff runners-up (2): 2012-13, 2017-18 * 'SGFA Cup' :*''Runners-up (1): 2006-07 Category:Otway Town F.C. Category:Club pages